When Your Sensitive Heart Is Filled With Fear

Lying in bed together one morning, Ben suddenly exclaimed, ‘You’ve got a tick!’

My lip started to tremble and then I began to cry. Such big sobs over a tiny tick. The waves kept coming as Ben removed it without a problem. The waves calmed and we carried on with our day. 

If you’re attentive, you can sense what’s going on beneath the obvious. I’ve been seeing and reading more and more about Lyme Disease lately and Ben and I have both had a few ticks over the summer. There’s a part of me that’s afraid of contracting Lyme and all that that might entail. That’s the obvious. But it was more than that. So much more. 

Hidden within the tears over the tick was another wave of grief over Rosie’s passing. And hidden within the grief over Rosie’s passing, was an uprising of fear and grief over the catastrophically sad and beautiful fragility of all life. 

The realisation that being alive is such a terrifyingly dangerous matter comes to us all, eventually, but it is perhaps a realisation that is more present more often for the highly sensitive heart. The heart that can’t help but feel all the subtle movements of life beyond the material realm.

When these big waves of fear and grief come upon us, what are we to do? Well, how about honouring our sensitive hearts and the astounding capacity they have to feel? What a vast space we must have within us to be able to hold so much. Yes, it can feel like a burden at times to be wired this way. But what an exquisite gift, too. 

We don’t need to fix the fear or get over the fear. We don’t need to make it wrong. We certainly don’t need to tell ourselves that we’re not doing very well spiritually if we are filled with such immense fear. We don’t need to do anything at all. 

For all the highly sensitive hearts out there who carry the beautiful burden of seeing and feeling so deeply, please remember that whatever you’re experiencing is not a problem to be solved but a treasure to honour and care for. I, for one, am so glad you’re here, spinning around on this miraculous planet at the same time as me.

Love and courage,

Leah